Echoes of Seska
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Post Equinox. When the dust is settled, Janeway muses on how similar Ransom was to Seska. Spoilers for a myriad of episodes.


**Disclaimer - I don't own Star Trek Voyager. Paramount does. Pity, right?**

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Janeway sat in her ready room, half dozing as she let herself go, letting herself release all the anger she'd felt towards Ransom and his crew of the Equinox for what they'd done. It had been a hard mission to track them down and deal with them; admittedly she hadn't had a good idea of what she'd been planning to do with the crew when she'd caught them, but now they'd been integrated with her crew under close supervision, she no longer had to deal with them. She'd already filed her report on the matter, and hoped when they got home, Starfleet Command would punish them even more, assuming they lived. And yet, Janeway couldn't stop thinking of Ransom. She would always see his face, and watch it steadily morph into a Cardassian's face, but not just any Cardassian. Seska. It was always the encounters of Seska that made Janeway think, and after this crisis and the mess Ransom had made, she couldn't help but think about her again despite her best efforts.

Thinking of Seska was enough to make anyone sick considering all the hell she had put everyone on Voyager through, especially Chakotay. Ever since Voyager and the Maquis crew had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway had fought to ensure the values of Starfleet and the Federation helped her hold the crews together. It hadn't been easy; Janeway had always done her duty where the Maquis were concerned, and as her time with Chakotay proved even preconceptions could change your attitude. Too bad Seska wasn't a Maquis, not in the eyes of Chakotay, B'elanna, or the others. Seska had been a Cardassian spy, sent to gather information on the Maquis cell Chakotay belonged to.

Like Tuvok had said about them, the Cardassians had sent deep level operatives under cover to gather information about their enemies, sometimes they would be in deep cover for years. The thought a Cardassian spy might be onboard her ship after the Val Jean was destroyed in that first battle with the Kazon during that fiasco with the Caretaker entity had been far from Janeway's mind, but the consequences had been far reaching, and had affected the way everyone behaved onboard Voyager when Janeway had invited Chakotay's crew onboard; it hadn't been a sudden decision, nor had it been lightly made. She'd lost quite a few people among the crew, and the chance of having new members take their places had been too good to miss out on. But it was the fact they needed each other; with the Federation and the DMZ colonies 70,000 light years away, Voyager was all they had. Many of the Maquis had not adjusted well - that was a big understatement, and in the first two years Janeway had lost track of how many problems relating to the Maquis crewmembers had ended up on her desk. But the revelation Seska was a Cardassian spy had blown everyone's mind, the fact she was helping the Kazon Nistrim hadn't helped. When she was confronted, Seska had ranted about how if Voyager were a Cardassian ship, they'd be on their way home with all the allies they'd made to survive. Janeway had always refused to pass any Starfleet technology to any of the races they encountered, but with the Kazon it took a whole new dimension.

The Kazon were a violent race, and they were so split into different factions vying for power in their little region; if one of those factions had gotten even a tricorder from Voyager, the others would tear the whole sector apart for it. Neelix hadn't understood at first until she'd explained it to him during that mess where Seska and Culluh had launched that shuttle into Voyager to steal a transporter module. When he'd gotten the picture, he'd realised the danger quickly. But Seska had continued being a thorn in their sides for another year - that business with the Trabe didn't really count, though Janeway could bet that she'd had a hand in ordering those attacks in the first place. That hope to gain some kind of alliance with one of the Sects must've been a dream come true for the Cardassian woman. Too bad it hadn't gone anywhere. Like Seska, Janeway had been appalled and surprised Culluh had even come up with that exchange of crewmembers idea; what on Earth had he been thinking when it came into his head? His sexist remarks about refusing to let a woman dictate terms to him hadn't helped, but it had given Janeway the opportunity she'd needed; her loathing for the Nistrim Maje was barely hidden at the best of times, that was a good excuse for her to get him out of her sight. But the shadow of the Cardassian bitch had reared its head again when Tom Paris, who'd been helping in a sting operation, discovered the identity of a spy/saboteur onboard Voyager, who'd been relaying information to Seska over a period of months. Michael Jonas had proved he didn't care for the Maquis no tolerance policy of the Cardassians when he'd first tried talking to Seska and the Kazon, but he was the least of their worries when Seska and the Kazon succeeded in capturing Voyager.

Janeway had to admit that little plot to use Chakotay's 'son' was a classic approach to bait Voyager, and it had worked. Too bad she didn't account for Tom, Lon Suder and the Doctor making life hard for her before she died. Once she was dead, the Kazon had left and Voyager had not dealt with them since, not that anyone was sorry. But as Tom had said, Seska hadn't let a little thing like death stop her when she'd appeared in that holoprogram Tuvok had written to prepare security officers in case of a Maquis mutiny, but even there she'd failed. Oh, she'd put up one hell of a fight, but eventually she'd lost.

But the aftereffects of Seska's actions continued to haunt everyone, even now. Janeway did her best to put the conniving bitch out of her mind, but after this latest mess with the Equinox, she couldn't help but think about Seska. Ransom might not have been as manipulative or had a long term plan besides getting his crew back home, the fact he'd lied reminded her of Seska. But there were differences - Ransom had wanted to get home with his crew after his ship had just been dragged across space by the Caretaker, and then summarily forgotten by the careless alien who no longer cared about the people he'd abducted. Many Starfleet captains cared for their crew, Ransom and Janeway were no different, and they went to great lengths to protect them, on that point they were in complete agreement. But they were totally different; Janeway had never had to go through what Ransom had to reach the stage where she'd have to drag aliens out of another realm, kill them and use their remains for fuel. It was obscene, and a complete breach of Starfleet and Federation rules and regulations. That had infuriated her. But...it was also the sort of thing Seska would've done, had she known about the aliens.

That was one of the driving forces behind Janeway's obsession to bring Ransom and his crew into custody, it had reminded her of Seska, something she had prayed never to have to deal with again after the bitch had finally died at the beginning of their third year in the Delta Quadrant, before that holographic ghost she'd set up died for good.

The damage Voyager had suffered, the attack by those nucleogenic aliens hadn't helped. Janeway had wanted to stop Ransom before he became someone similar to Seska, someone who had caused the crew nothing but pain and grief, the fact they were Starfleet officers themselves would make it worse. But those fears were for nought when Ransom had come to his senses and realised what he'd done when Seven had been so badly injured after the Doctor's ethics had been deactivated. True, not all of Equinox's crew had been beamed over, much to her private relief, but the survivors were going to learn their actions had consequences. As Janeway prepared to leave her ready room to get to bed, she considered recent events and her own private thoughts. Seska the woman might be dead, but some people could take her place if given the chance, but in Ransom's case sometimes those people woke up. Now all she had to do was gain Chakotay's forgiveness, and check on Seven. The Doctor had really done a number on her after his ethical subroutines had been turned off, and the guilt was probably eating him up. Another thing Seska would've done if she'd thought she could get away with it.

What do you think? Feedback more than welcome.


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